Thailand’s Deep South has been embroiled in exacerbated insurgency since 2004. In 2025 the region is experiencing an upsurge in violence. How did this conflict begin? Can it be diminished or concluded? This paper argues that the Thai state has possessed insufficient legitimacy for its peace policies to end the insurrection. Indeed, Thailand has followed an illiberal peacebuilding agenda in the Deep South. This paper then examines the conflict, analyzes to what extent it might continue, looks at potential methods to diminish it, and offers a conclusion.

This study interrogates the concept of Thailand's 'Lower North', asking whether the region possesses a singular political identity and examining the roles played by dynastic powerbrokers within each province. It argues that unlike the 'Upper North', the Lower North lacks any particular region-centred heritage and political identity. The Lower North's apparent peripheral status has appeared to make it either an appendage of Bangkok or of Chiangmai. In recent years, politicians from the Lower North have tended to stress either provincial (rather than regional) identity or 'pork barrel' materialist politics. The political cultures of most Lower North provinces remain dominated by 'strongmen' rather than by well-rooted political parties.

In 2025 subnational contestation and violence are alive and well in Southeast Asia in the form of continuing conflicts within at least five countries in the Southeast Asian region. This Special Issue takes a look at these crises, why they exist, what peace efforts have been tried, and potential paths to achieving conflict resolution and transformation of conflictual relationships. This Introduction offers a review of literature on peacebuilding particularly in Southeast Asia. Notably, peace is highly relevant in Southeast Asia because, though the region has become prosperous economically, greater stability necessitates that states work towards resolving civil wars, insurgencies, and people’s grievances. Peacebuilding can also facilitate improving the human security of peoples living in Southeast Asia’s conflict zones in terms of their standard of living as well as their access to health, education, and other areas. Moreover, this Introduction emphasizes how peacebuilding is a concept entangled with legitimation, recognition, redistribution and geopolitics. At the same time, there can be liberal peacebuilding and illiberal peacebuilding—both have been tried in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the Introduction reflects on efforts by asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to help resolve conflicts in the region. It then summarizes the case-study articles in this Special Issue. In sum, this Introduction prefaces the Special Issue’s attempt to offer comparisons and contrasts of peacebuilding in Southeast Asia as well as offer hope that the cases discussed herein can provide lessons-learned in the difficulties of peacebuilding through Southeast Asian experiences so as to help others far and wide.

Thai political science scholarship has traditionally concentrated on democracy, national politics, and electoral dynamics, focusing predominantly on regions such as the metropolitan periphery, the Northeast, the Upper North. Conversely, the Lower North remains significantly understudied and is frequently misclassified within adjacent regions, resulting in a fragmented understanding of its distinct political landscape. Consequently, there is lack of a systematic analytical framework to comprehensively analyze political developments specific to this area. This study systematically reviews 695 publications from 1997 to 2024, retrieved from Scopus, Sage Journals, ThaiJo, and the King Prajadhipok’s Institute database, to examine how the Lower North has been analyzed in political research. The study identifies two main objectives: 1) to map the development of political research on the Lower North over the past 27 years, and 2) to highlight key gaps and underexplored themes that constrain understanding of the region’s politics. Findings reveal that since 2006, scholarly attention has largely concentrated on political behavior, particularly electoral patterns and voting strategies. Concurrently, research on political institutions, public administration, sociopolitical movements, and resistance groups has expanded significantly. However, foundational issues—such as economic structures, capital flows, historical influences, local power dynamics, and capitalist networks—remain notably understudied. This imbalance has produced a fragmented understanding of the region, privileging event-driven analyses over structural explanations of power and capital networks. The study contributes by proposing an agenda for future research that emphasizes structural political economy, balanced provincial representation, methodological diversity, and policy-relevant institutional analysis, positioning the Lower North as a crucial site for understanding Thailand’s evolving political landscape.